Today, while admiring the elegance of the swallows giving me the honour to again spending a summer under Seanhenge's roof, suddenly Chapter 5 [On Convention] in 'The Short Story' by Sean O'Faolain came to my mind.
I jumped up, took the book, opened page 173, finally put on my skirt in order to type the following:
'We forget when enjoying the pleasure of any art, of music, poetry, painting or the theatre, that a very great part of our pleasure has been dependent on convention. We are expected to forget it. In the theatre we have all tacitly agreed to see nothing odd about a room that, on the stage, has only three sides; or, in painting, it does not seem odd to us that we see a view as if our heads were held in a vice whereas in life we let our eyes wander east and west, shift position a dozen times and see the landscape under fifty changing lights. The point is elementary; that is why it so important; because it is so very obvious it is constantly forgotten, and this forgetting has, as I will show in this chapter, profound implications. I will here barely hint at one of them by recalling how a humourous philosopher once pointed to a cow in a field and said to me, 'What do you see there?'
I obligingly said that I perceived a cow. 'But you do not,' he replied. 'You deduce a cow. All you see is the appearance of one-half of the outside of a cow. And when you look at a portrait of your aunt all you see is a picture of the outside of one-half of your aunt. You go through a series of lightning processes before accepting this superficies as a portrait of your aunt. It is, for instance, the whole case against realism that it concentrates on giving us the outside of the one-half of everything.' In other words the convention of realism depends for its success on our forgetting that realism is a convention. So does every other convention.'
The peace of the night!
I know a bloody smiley when I see one, even though some do claim I see a mere harmless colon before a parenthesis. Philosophy cannot blind me to the real threats that lurk in damned reality... Some idiots have tried to persuade me that my reality is not real. What nonsense!
ReplyDeleteYou mean certain neuroscientists like Singer claiming there does not exist someting like an "own will"?
DeleteTypical case of agglutinated synapses, obviously.
Feck off Neuroscentists. One told me I was mad, you know. Arseholes!
DeleteNicely put.
DeleteIt might sound rude, but a real old friend of mine once muttered that they can't help it, and blamed the one who had shit into their brains.
Real fact is that a neuroscientist and a donkey know more than a neuroscientist.
The great nobility of the donkey is that it does not know enough to be stupid, unlike the human.
DeleteAnd blessed is the donkey trotting behind Rocinante's whipping tail.
DeleteI have just scolded the Don with my guidance that he should not be so rude, nor so dismissive. His reply was... well, best I do not really tell you what his real reply was (always assuming it was real, obviously).
ReplyDeleteI might even learn some new curses? Ah, tell me all, Andrew!
ReplyDeleteAch, I see he has found a different target now... An old favourite.
DeleteAh, there are fine thoughts being born under the Helmet of Perthino, tonight.
DeleteStrange, for Dulcinea, while reading her book beside me, just asked: "What nonsense are your writing tonight?" I will forgive her, as always. She understands so litt… well, perhaps too much. Goodnight towards the peace of nothingness to you.
DeleteMay the reality of the nothingness let sleep you peacefully tonight.
DeleteI'd probably just grab a pencil and paper and draw the swallows, and forget about reality and conventions ^^
ReplyDeleteWell, you could, of course, Linda! If I tried to draw a swallow the drawing would nothing have to do with reality. ;-)
DeleteThat's exactly my point, you see dear Sean?
ReplyDeleteWe can create our own corner of reality
as we want it to be...
Like we did when we were children.
I think thats what art could be all about.
It should lift us up, by means of fantasy
to make the pseudo pragmatism, that rules our society these days, bareable.
Pff... I talk too much.
Wish you sweet dreams,
time for me to go to sleep =]
Dear Linda, let Don QuiScottie's and my taciturnity not stop you from talking more. It is lovely to read what you are thinking.
DeleteThe longer I live, the more difficult it became not to become disenchanted, sarcastic and sometimes even cynical.
Fortunately, I am still able to happily watch bees and bumble bees, the flight of the swallows, and to smile at people I never met. Telling stories, conjuring sweets out of my socks, dancing wild and silly and in the evening being told that granddaughter had whispered "Sometimes Granddad is really crazy, isn't he?" ... makes me happy.